Has Microsoft just ruined Windows Home Server?

Ars Technica covers the implications of Microsoft removing the Drive Extender feature from Windows Home Server.

Indeed, Drive Extender was fundamental to the home server concept. A home server as originally envisaged by the Windows Home Server team should have, in essence, infinite storage, and storage that should be transparently extensible.

Drive Extender was JBOD according to the article on Ars Technica. I never saw that as HP specified I needed four same sized HDDs for my EX470. It could have done the same with RAID and as long as the console handled the function no one would’ve noticed the difference. The real promise for a home server, for me, would have been shared applications like an Office 365 home version. A 10-user suite running on WHS and accessible from any connected PC. A WHS version of Access or SQL that allowed one to create dB apps for everyone connected. Roaming user accounts letting your WHS turn any PC at home into a terminal of sorts. You’d have access to your desktop from any home PC attached to your WHS box. THAT is what I was hoping for… Drive Extender (specifically) not so much. I do want a large storage pool but how WHS creates it (DE, RAID, unRAID, etc.) is not my personal Rubicon. I want an automated, console driven, home version of a server with all the goodies to make my PCs work together to make my life easier.

Note: my EX470 is offline due to BIOS corruption (probably) which can’t be fixed without a monitor, which the device doesn’t allow. All my data was gone including backups of other PCs that were being repaired. It’s unknown whether DE or HP’s server recovery app erased the data. I’m getting a new server and installing WHS 2011. Hopefully it gets closer to that dream machine I initially described.